How can we fight NHS privatisation?

The government has republished an advert inviting private companies to run primary health services, despite a row which forced the original advert in an official EU journal to be pulled two weeks ago.

UNISON is sharply critical of this move – see the report on the website at http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=2752. But will our Labour Link Committee now come out in support of the candidate for Labour leader who would stop all this nonsense (see http://www.john4leader.org.uk/) – we shall have to wait and see…

To fight cuts and privatisation in our health service we need our unions to be backing initiatives like tomorrow’s demonstration in Birmingham (http://www.nhssos.org.uk/) and working with the effective campaigning organisation that brings together unions and patients - Keep Our NHS Public (http://www.keepournhspublic.com/index.php).

We also need to use our relationship with the Labour Party to fight for union policies in the Labour Party. This cannot be done by pretending that we can have “influence” with the New Labour dross currently running the Party – who will remain in charge under Gordon (PFI) Brown. UNISON should be piling on the pressure for the real Labour Government whose policies would reflect the views of ordinary people, which means fighting to change the leadership of the Labour Party.